Trump Officials Say San José State Broke Civil Rights Law by Letting Trans Athlete Play

The Trump administration accused San José State University on Wednesday of violating federal anti-discrimination law by allowing a transgender athlete to play on the women’s volleyball team, the latest step in the government’s wide-ranging campaign to restrict the rights of trans people.

The U.S. Department of Education launched its Title IX sex-discrimination investigation in February, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening to rescind funding from schools over policies on trans athletes.

As part of a resolution deal offered to the university, the department’s Office for Civil Rights demanded that San José State apologize to players and acknowledge that the “sex of a human — male or female — is unchangeable,” officials said in a statement.

San José State, which has never acknowledged whether a transgender athlete played on the team, said it is in the process of reviewing the Education Department’s findings.

The Trump administration first targeted San José State after former volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit against the school and the Mountain West Conference, alleging that allowing trans players to compete violates the rights of women. Following Trump’s executive order, the NCAA said it would change its policy to bar trans athletes from women’s sports.

Slusser, who spoke out about the case on Fox News and other outlets, sought to stop a teammate she said was transgender from competing. The player had not spoken publicly about her gender identity. Other plaintiffs included players from conference rivals such as the University of Wyoming and Boise State University, which forfeited games against San José State.

The Education Department also accused San José State of retaliating against players who spoke out and “subjecting one female SJSU athlete to a Title IX complaint for allegedly ‘misgendering’” a teammate, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said.

“We will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities,” Richey said.

Title IX is a landmark 1979 law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Last year, the Trump administration pursued a similar Title IX investigation against the University of Pennsylvania, which agreed to no longer allow transgender women to participate in female sports.

Shiwali Patel, a senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center and a Title IX attorney, called the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX “fundamentally flawed.”

“Title IX protects every student from sex discrimination,” Patel said. “That includes students of all genders; that includes students who are trans. No federal circuit court has ever said that Title IX requires schools to prohibit trans students from accessing bathrooms or playing sports.”

From his first day in office, Trump sought to roll back federal protections for transgender girls, women and individuals. On Wednesday, the Department of Education also accused California of violating federal law “by pressuring school officials to withhold information about students’ so-called ‘gender transitions’ from their parents,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.

And earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against bans on transgender athletes. The court, which is expected to rule sometime this summer, appeared inclined to uphold state bans in Idaho and West Virginia.

Patel denounced the administration for using the Education Department’s limited resources “to go after the rights of trans kids and to not actually address sex discrimination.”

“There was recent reporting that showed that last year the administration opened only 10 investigations addressing sexual assault,” Patel said. “[And] we’ve all heard stories of girls’ softball fields not comparing to the boys’ baseball fields and the millions of dollars of lost scholarship money that college women athletes face compared to men. There are actual inequities and these anti-trans sports bans are doing nothing to solve them. Really, they’re just legitimizing and pushing discrimination against a vulnerable group.”